Introduction

The internet is a complex, unorganized, rapidly evolving, and
ever-changing environment. Thus, while the structure and technology of it
can be explained relatively easily, it is rarely possible to give a
complete content description for any specific topic. This document will
list most of the major resources available. The reader can use these as
entrance points into cyberspace, from which points he or she can search
and discover the rest. One can also consult the list of Publishing
Houses and Journals for email and homepage addresses. Many of these
web addresses also provide lists of links and thus can serve as starting
points.

The internet is often equated with the World Wide Web, largely because of
the relatively recent advent of graphical web browsers like Netscape and
Microsoft Internet Explorer. These allow the user to interface with many
different types of internet resource through one program, masking what is
in reality a variety of distinct internet functions. The primary types of
basic functions, or "protocols," are the World Wide Web, which allows one
to view pages of text and graphics from distant computers; email, which
allows one to send data, usually letters, from one person's private
"account" to another's; the Usenet, which allows one to read from or add
to a public message database, much as one would tack notes on to an office
bulletin-board; FTP, which transfers files from one computer to another;
and Internet Relay Chat, with which computer users who are logged-on at
the same time can type messages to each other, much like a large telephone
conference-call conducted through computers. There are other basic
protocols but they tend to be out- dated (like gopher), little-used (like
hytelnet), for somewhat advanced application (like telnet), or not yet
functional (like virtual reality).

The internet rapidly changes in many ways. Web sites and listservers
(defined below) come into and go out of existence with great rapidity, and
their addresses change even more regularly (many are operated by students
on their university's computers and so have to change addresses every time
they change or leave schools). The information contained in this section
is all current as of July 2000, but will gradually decrease in
accuracy. Should an address be invalid, the best option is to do an
internet search for it (using a source such as Yahoo or
Altavista) to see if the site has
relocated.

This guide to internet resources will first describe the main Baha'i
source for organizing and assisting with the internet, the Baha'i Computer
and Communications Association-the BCCA-and then list the major resources
for the primary features in relative order of common availability: email,
the web, the usenet, and ftp. Quotations included are from the relevant
webpages or listservers discussed and so their sources are not cited.

BCCA

The Baha'i Computer and Communications Association is, according to its
mission statement, "a group of Baha'is dedicated to promoting use of
computer, network and telecommunication technologies in the service of the
global Baha'i community and humanity in order to foster consultation, and
to propagate the healing message of Baha'u'llah." Its mandate includes:
(1) providing a pool of Baha'i technical volunteers; (2) disseminating
information and details on Baha'i computer projects around the world; (3)
providing assistance to Baha'i institutions and individuals to develop
solutions with computer and telecommunications technology; (4) encouraging
individual Baha'is to form local computer user groups which will serve
local Baha'i institutions in a given area; (5) creating conferencing and
consultation forums linking Baha'is around the world by telecommunications
and computer technologies; (6) seeking to establish computer and
communications standards that can be adopted by the Baha'i World
Community; (7) disseminating information on computing and communications
technology to the Baha'i World Community; (8) developing Computer Mediated
Communication techniques that will efficiently communicate the healing
message of Baha'u'llah to the generality of humankind; and (9) providing,
in a systematic way, a full range of communication and consultation
facilities to Baha'i educational institutions around the world.

The BCCA maintains a few basic files describing matters of interest to
Baha'i on the internet, an index for which can be obtained by sending a
blank email to get-index@bcca.org. One of these, a good if dated summary
of Baha'i online activities, can be obtained by sending a blank email to
get-faq1@bcca.org.

Email

The most common use of email is for users to send messages back and forth
to each other as individuals. This is not a public feature and is not a
resource. However, there is a mechanism called a "listserver" by
which email postings can be shared amongst a private group of individuals.
One host computer will act as a central switching station for the
listserver, sending a copy of every email sent to it back out to every
member of the group. It is thus like the usenet (see below), save that the
medium of transmission is different and it tends to be a more regulated
environment. Unlike the usenet, listservers are sometimes private, not
automated, in which case one must write to a contact person to get added.
Like the usenet, listserver groups are each focused on one topic. Unlike the
usenet, these topics tend to be more specific and useful: where the usenet
tends to feature groups discussing popular culture and events, listservers
often address the needs of more private professional or academic
communities. Some listservers, such as talisman2000@egroups.com or zuhur19@egroups.com, also have web interfaces where one can read and post email.

There are numerous listservers, from private ones for small Baha'i clubs at
individual universities or for Baha'is employed at individual corporations
to public ones such as fora for Baha'i announcements, Baha'is in Japan,
Baha'i singles, Baha'i literature, Baha'i women, or Baha'i academics.
Since many of these are regional and/or private, far more exist than any
one database could know of and list. The best ways to seek specific
listservers are either to write to the BCCA at webmaster@www.bcca.org or
post a question to an appropriate public one or to soc.religion.bahai (see
below).

General Baha'i listervers

Three of the major general Baha'i listervs are bahai-announce, bahai-discuss, and
bahai-faith. Baha'i-announce is a world-wide forum for announcements of Baha'i-related matters. Baha'i-discuss is probably the largest and most active of the Baha'i-only listservers, and is used for general discussion of any matter related to the Faith which members wish to discuss. Bahai-faith is the email version of the usenet newsgroup
soc.religion.bahai (see below), designed for those without usenet access.
To subscribe to any of these three, send your request to bahai-announce-request@bcca.org, to bahai-discuss-request@bcca.org, or to bahai-faith-request@bcca.org, resp. (include your full name, Baha'i ID #, and city/state/country of residence). To post
messages to the newsgroup (which will be first screened by the
moderators), emails are sent to bahai-announce@bcca.org, bahai-discuss@bcca.org, or bahai-faith@bcca.org.

Other available
services include the Noble Creation list, which discusses social and
economic development issues, and can be subscribed to by sending a blank
email to noble-creation-request@bcca.org. Postings to Noble Creation are
sent to Noble-Creation@bcca.org, and more information can be obtained at
www.bcca.org/services/lists/noble-creation. There is a variety of
listservers for Baha'is only, including bahai-announce, which focuses on
news and other announcements of interest to the Baha'i community;
Bahai-discuss, which is a somewhat random discussion of Baha'i-related
issues; Bahai-women-converse, of issues for and about women; and others.
Listservers for both Baha'is and non-Baha'is available here include Race
Unity, for discussions of racial equality and elimination of prejudice,
and Bahai-Readings, a daily posting of excerpts from Baha'i sacred texts.

Some Baha'i listservers are also hosted at egroups.com, including race-unity@egroups.com (subscribe by sending a blank email to race-unity-subscribe@egroups.com) and bahai-environment@egroups.com.

To subscribe to one of these, write to bahai-request@bcca.org. Include the
following in the email: (1) Email address of person subscribing, in
lowercase letters only (it usually comes with the mail, but it may have an
interim host included or it may have to be extracted from other extraneous
header information); (2) name of the person subscribing, last name first;
(3) The NAME(s) of the LIST(s) you wish to subscribe to (there is more
than one list managers); if a Baha'i-only listserver, then include either
one's Baha'i ID number or, if not available, then the name of a Baha'i
that can verify your status; and (5) place of residence (city,
state/province (for US or Canada), and country). You may include your full
home address and phone numbers (home, work including area code and country
code, where applicable) for inclusion in the BCCA database, but if you do,
then you must indicate if this information can be given out to other
Baha'is on e-mail database queries. For a description of all other BCCA
mailing lists send a blank email to get-faq1@bcca.org.

Academic Baha'i listservers

A variety of scholarly listservers has been born and died in the past three
years. The three main ones in existence as of this writing are
Bahai-studies, H-Bahai, and Talisman (this is actually Talisman
two: after a brief hiatus, the group Talisman one changed mandates and
owners in June, 1996). These three groups have slightly different
atmospheres, levels and types of discussion, and often different
memberships. Some of these have splintered into smaller groups, as for example Talisman two has spun off talisman2000@egroups.com and zuhur19@egroups.com, and there are surely other academic Baha'i lists than these. The Wilmette Institute, for example, has its own public list for Baha'i studies announcements, which can be subscribed to by sending a blank email to subscribe-winews@lists.usbnc.org or visiting the website lists.usbnc.org/lyris/lyris.pl?enter=winews.

Bahai-studies

Bahai-studies is an unmoderated group maintained by Mark A. Foster. Its
mandate is "the consultative investigation of truth/reality, using the
Baha'i Teachings as its spiritual foundation. In light of the list's
purposes and objectives, it is not a discussion/announcement list in the
usual sense." It is available both in a regular version (mailings are
received in one's mail inbox as and when posted) and as a digest (mailings
are collated and received as one compilation of postings in one's inbox
once per day). To subscribe, send a message to major@jccc.net. The
subject line is to be left blank, and in the body of the text one writes
"subscribe bahai-st" (without quotation marks). All other information,
such as tag lines and signature files, should be removed. To subscribe to
the digest version, do the same but write "subscribe bahai-st-digest" in
the body instead. To post a message to the Baha'i Studies list, send it to
bahai-st@jccc.net. For this the subject line and the body of the
message can be whatever the writer wishes to post; this message will go to
every member of the group, not to the automated subscription program.

H-Bahai

H-Bahai is "an academic forum for the discussion of technical issues in
the study of the Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i movements. Not only university
teachers and graduate students, but exceptionally qualified high school
teachers, librarians, and other intellectuals are potential candidates for
membership. A degree in the humanities or social sciences is usually
required." Membership is restricted "to individuals who have demonstrated
a serious interest in the academic study of the Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i
Faiths, as evidenced in professional training, publications, teaching or
service to these or closely related fields, or by other relevant
significant achievements or signs of ability to contribute to academic
discourse on the subject." H-Bahai is sponsored by H-Net, the Humanities
and Social Sciences On-line of Michigan State University. Its level of
discussion tends to be fairly scholarly, and its membership is almost
exclusively academic. To join H-BAHAI, send a message to
listserver@h-net.msu.edu, with no subject line, and only this in the body:
"sub H-BAHAI firstname lastname, institution," where personal information
is substituted for "firstname lastname, institution." Capitalization does
not matter, but spelling, spaces and commas do. When you include your own
information, the message will look something like this: "sub H-BAHAI Jonah
Winters, University of Toronto." If you have any questions or experience
any difficulties in attempting to subscribe, send a message to Juan Cole,
jrcole@umich.edu. H-Bahai also has a website homepage: see below.

Talisman

Talisman is
unmoderated, meaning that any posting automatically is sent to all group
members, and unlike H-Bahai has no expectation that its members
will hold a higher or post-secondary degree. The mission statement of
Irfan, a now-defunct listserverer, applies equally well to both: "The purpose of the Irfan list is to
disseminate information and ideas emerging from the academic study of the
Baha'i Faith beyond the academic community and to facilitate discussions
of issues relating to the Baha'i Faith that are informed by academic
scholarship." Talisman can be subscribed to by sending a
blank email message to talisman9-subscribe@onelist.com

World Wide Web

Though the most famous and visible part of the internet, the web is
actually one of its newest. It is, however, one of the most useful means
of searching for and downloading information. Indeed, the number of
unpublished articles, histories, and provisional translations available
online, as well as the complete set of sacred writings, Baha'i
International Community statements, and other official material, makes the
web an indispensable source of information.

Standard Baha'i Sites

There are several hundred Baha'i oriented sites currently available
online, and the number is growing by at least 20% per year. One need not
list more than just a few of these, though, because one of the prime
features of the web is its ability to "link," i.e. to connect different
documents and distant sites to each other: from each one the internet user
can find indices of numerous others and quickly explore dozens of
different sites. Most of these are what are here termed "standard" Baha'i
sites, so-called because for the most part they present the same
information and the same links, differing mostly in manner of presentation
and items of regional or personal interest.

The sacred writings have been available by ftp (see below) from the Baha'i
World Center for some time. They are now mirrored to many other sites
around the world and available through web browsers. An index to some of
these sites is available at www.bcca.org/info/texts/topiclist.html. The BCCA
homepage, http://www.bcca.org, is a good starting point for other internet
Baha'i resources. From here one can find links to online compilations, The
Baha'is magazine online
(oneworld.wa.com/bahai/magazine/cover.html), Baha'i
International Community statements, relatively complete lists of
individuals' and groups' homepages, Baha'i-related photographs and
clip-art, and explanations of other resources such as chat groups and
listservers. Very good indices to all of these resources, organized differently and
perhaps more clearly, can also by found at bcca.org/bahaivision (formerly "Glen Little's Baha'i Page").
The Baha'i International Community's homepage also opens with a good
introductory online magazine on the Faith, at www.bahai.org.

Another good starting point for one wishing to explore the Baha'i webpages
without necessarily searching for specific items is the Baha'i Webring.
The Webring is a service which allows sites with a common theme to
interconnect. When one enters a webring, one can choose options such as
jumping to the next page on the ring, the previous one, or any random
site. To join this service, or to enter the Baha'i Webring from the top,
go to
webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?home&ring=bahai (this server is
frequently down; if no response, try again a day later). To enter the ring
at a randomly-chosen site, type
webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?id=112&ring=bahai&random into your
web browser.

Finally, Baha'is who have a valid United States Baha'i identity card can
access the United States Baha'i National Center's website,
www.usbnc.org. This site
contains among other things feast
messages, news, annual reports, descriptions of the major departments at
the Baha'i National Center, their functions, and answers to common
question about them.

Academic Baha'i Sites

Academic Baha'i Sites are harder to find than the standard oneswhile
there are well over a hundred sites providing information of a personal or
regional interest, and linking to the same few providers of sacred texts,
images, and other common information, there is only a handful of sites
providing new and original academic information, or information presented
in a scholarly fashion.

The largest online resource for Baha'i studies is the Baha'i
Academics Resource Library, bahai-library.org. This site
features several thousand documents broken down into headings
such as Primary Source Material, which includes provisional translations,
letters from the Universal House of Justice, historical documents, and
pilgrims' notes; Secondary Source Material, which includes articles,
journalistic pieces, book reviews, court documents, and personal essays;
Resource Tools, which includes a database of Baha'i scholars,
bibliographies, journal indices, and philological tools; and a listing of
all of the useful academic sites. This Resource Guide is also available at
this site in an online format.

The other sites of academic utility will all be listed here, because it
could take some time for the researcher to find them on his or her own.
The H-Bahai listserver, run by H-Net, the "Humanities and Social Sciences
On-Line" initiative sponsored Michigan State University and supported by
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Michigan Council for the
Humanities, also has a webpage at h-net.msu.edu/~bahai. Here is
included a variety of articles, provisional translations, historical
materials in the original Arabic and Persian (available as graphic files),
book reviews, and other documents such as the "Occasional Papers in
Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies" series. The H-Bahai homepage is emerging
as a very useful site for original online publishing, and is the most
scholarly and selective collection of academic materials available.

Juan R.I. Cole's Home Page, www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/bahai.htm, was the first
academic webpage on the Faith. It includes numerous original Baha'i
material as well as other Islamic studies and related links. Some of these
documents, and others similar, are included at the website for the H-Bahai
listserver, http://h-net.msu.edu/~bahai. Both of these websites also feature
documents related to Babi and Baha'i history in their original Arabic and
Persian-these have been scanned and entered as photo images, which can
then be viewed online page-by-page. Moojan Momen's Religious Studies page,
http://www.northill.demon.co.uk/relstud, includes a few original and not
otherwise-available articles authored by him, and his Arjmand Colloquia
page, http://www.northill.demon.co.uk/irfan, includes abstracts from and
reports on the Haj Mehdi Arjmand seminars for the study of sacred texts.
Stephen Fuqua's site,
Spirit of Glory: The
Baha'i Faith's Studies Material, page offers a wide variety of materials, some not available elsewhere. Finally, worthy of
note is Sifter: An Institute for the Study of Baha'i Writings,
http://www.shodjai.org/new.html. Among other things Sifter features one
thousand letters of Shoghi Effendi which are available only in books
elsewhere online but here are indexed chronologically, complete with
publishing information. The North American Association for Baha'i Studies
also has a webpage, www.bahai-studies.ca.

Usenet

The usenet is a public "bulletin-board" system accessed through
applications with titles like "newsreader," "net news," or, in UNIX,
"trn," "rn," and "tin." It is divided up into numerousover
21,000individual "newsgroups," each one dedicated to discussing a
specific topic. Though joining a group is called "subscribing," joining is
actually free and automated. Newsgroups have names like
alt.fan.michael.jackson, alt.binaries.art.digitized,
comp.macintosh.utilities, rec.humor, soc.culture.iranian,
talk.clubs.boy.scouts, etc.

Thus far two newsgroups are dedicated to discussing the Baha'i Faith:
talk.religion.bahai and soc.religion.bahai. The former is somewhat new and hence might not
carried by all internet service providers. It is unmoderated, and tends to
contain many postings, sometimes critical, by non-Baha'is. In contrast,
soc.religion.bahai (often abbreviated "srb") has been in existence for a
few years and is stable and reliable. It is moderated, meaning that
editors read all submissions to the group before posting them publicly to
screen out junk mail and the occasional hate mail.

Soc.religion.bahai's mission statement defines it thus: "The newsgroup
will act as a non- threatening forum for discussing and sharing
information about the tenets, history, and texts of the Baha'i Faith.
Prior to its formation there was a good amount of traffic on this topic in
other newsgroups; this group provides a 'single point of contact' for such
discussion. Examples of posts that fall within the group's scope are: (1)
The Baha'i Faith's relation to other religions; (2) Relevance of Baha'i
principles to current world events/problems; (3) Analysis of particular
scriptural passages or themes; and (4) General Q & A."

One can subscribe to soc.religion.bahai within one's newsreader
application. If it does not appear to be available, contact the customer
service representative of your internet service provider to get it added
to your newsfeed. More information can be obtained by visiting its
website, the Soc.Religion.Bahai home page, at
bcca.org/services/srb. At this site one can access the srb
archives, as well as read introductory articles about srb, the Baha'i
Faith, a bibliography for the Faith, and a document on Baha'i Resources on
the Internet. As well, if one does not wish to or cannot use a newsreader,
all srb postings can be obtained via email-see above.

FTP

To date, the original collection of sacred and related texts from the
Baha'i World Center is only available via file transfer
protocolftpthough they are mirrored in many other places via the web
(via hypertext transfer protocol, http), such as at bahai-library.org/writings. If for any reason one seeks to
access these files from the world center instead of from the sites
mirrored on the web, one can simply use one's web browser. Type
ftp://ftp.bwc.org/bahai/ into the "location" or "go" bar. Explore the
directories or read the "readme" files to get directions. To download a
file, simply click on the file name. Before downloading a zipped file, be
sure to have the appropriate decompression software. With UNIX, at the
command prompt type "ftp," then "open ftp.bwc.org." When connected, type
"anonymous" as login and your login name (e.g., for me it's "winters") as
your password. Commands include "help" to list topics; "ls" to list files
and directories; "cd (directory name)," e.g. "cd bahai" to change
directories; "cd .." (note two periods) to move to one directory higher;
"get (filename)," e.g. "get nabil.zip" to download a file, and "quit" to
exit. If it won't let you download it is likely that you are seeing a
directory, not a file. For example, "iqan" is a folder containing
different format versions of the Kitab-i-Iqan. One must first change
directory, "cd iqan," then list contents, "ls," and then download the
desired file, e.g. "get iqa-eng-txt01-Z." This process may seem more
foreign to the new internet user and is more difficult to navigate than
simply accessing the files via the web. It is listed here for the sake of
completeness.

Software

Many pieces of Baha'i-related computer software, such as search programs,
can be either ordered or downloaded online. Ian Vink Software, ianvink.com/bahai, includes free programs such as
study guides and graphics as well as purchasable software for community
administration and other study guides. For a list of other software sites, see bahai-library.org/etc/links.html.

The authoritative Baha'i Writings are available online for handheld computers, sp. using the PalmOS (i.e. Palm Pilot) and PocketPC (Microsoft) operating systems. These have been prepared by Darren Hiebert and can be found at http://www.jkl.com/eBahai.

There are at least two CD-ROMs available which have archived almost all academic and primary-source Baha'i material available on the internet on a CD-ROM. Both are designed to be an offline equivalent of surfing Baha'i sites on the web, intended largely for use by those (1) without Internet access, (2) with a slow modem, or (3) simply wishing to have all relevant sites archived on their own computer for ease of use and speed of access. One is Graham Sorenson's, which can be ordered from bahai-library.org/cdrom. The second is the Master Baha'i Library.

"Archive" is a searchable electronic textbase of the Baha'i Writings for both Macintosh and Windows computers, which features a user-friendly Mac-like interface. It features regular updates, available for free for registered users. It can be ordered from http://bahai-library.org/archive.

"Immerse: The Electronic Baha'i Library," by Bernal Schooley, is a free set of all the sacred
Baha'i writings complete with a full text proximity search feature
(including boolean, wildcard, and phrase support searching) which allows
the user to find passages in nearly four hundred books, messages by the
Baha'i Central Figures, the Universal House of Justice, and holy books
from the major world religions. It is currently available for Windows 95
and Windows 3.1 only. The original website,
tranquillity.com/immerse, is no longer active, but the
program has appeared again at
www6.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000EJA. See also the new homepage, at www.lotsofschooleys.com/Immerse/index.htm.

A new entry to the software market is the "Baha'i Library Multi-Media CD-ROM," billed as "the first multimedia Baha'i reference library available to date in the Baha'i world. This multimedia reference CD is a continuance of Digital Era Productions' previous product, the Baha'is Magazine CD ROM, (www.bahaicd.com) introduced in 1997 as a multimedia version of the Baha'is Magazine." It costs $129, and is available from www.bahailibrary.com.

MARS: Multiple Author Refer System is a popular Baha'i-text search engine
which can be purchased online at crimsonpublications.com.

A final software resource to list is True Seeker, which is an online
search engine for the Baha'i sacred writings. The True Seeker home page
allows you to do key word searches of the Baha'i Writings, either by
searching all texts or a specific subset. This can be found at
metalab.unc.edu/Bahai/TrueSeeker.